Abstract

Life of sexually reproducing organisms starts with the fusion of two highly specialized cells, the egg and the sperm, which gives rise to a single cell, the zygote. Fertilization initiates the egg-to-embryo transition, one of the most dramatic developmental transition resulting in the transformation of the egg from a dormant state into regulatorily and functionally distinct embryonic cells. While this transition has been studied extensively in respect to zygotic genome activation, the molecular mechanisms that mediate sperm-egg binding and fusion during fertilization and regulate the maintenance of dormancy in the egg and re-activation in the embryo remain poorly understood. The vision of the Pauli lab is to gain mechanistic insights into the egg-to-embryo transition, with a specific focus on the molecular control of fertilization and developmentally programmed dormancy and re-activation. 

Andrea (Andi) Pauli will talk about recent findings from her lab related to their work towards uncovering the mechanism of vertebrate fertilization and translational regulation during the egg-to-embryo transition. By combining genetic, molecular, cellular, biochemical, structural and genomics approaches in their main model organism, the zebrafish, the long-term vision of the Pauli lab is to unravel new concepts and molecular mechanisms governing this fascinating developmental transition that marks the beginning of life. 

Biography

Andrea Pauli (Andi) studied biochemistry in Regensburg, Germany, and obtained her Masters in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Heidelberg University, Germany. In 2004, she started her PhD at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, co-supervised by Kim Nasmyth and Barry Dickson to investigate non-mitotic functions of cohesin using Drosophila as a model organism. In 2006, she moved with Kim Nasmyth to Oxford University, UK, where she obtained her PhD in 2009, providing the first direct evidence that cohesin has essential functions in post-mitotic cells. As a postdoc in Alex Schier’s lab at Harvard University, USA, Andi made two key findings that have shaped her research since: first, translation is widespread outside of protein-coding regions in vertebrates; and second, some of the newly discovered translated regions encode functionally important short proteins, one of which is Toddler, an essential signal for mesodermal cell migration during gastrulation.

In 2015, Andi established her own lab at the IMP in Vienna, Austria, which aims to gain mechanistic insights into (1) the fundamental yet still poorly understood process of fertilization in vertebrates and (2) translational and proteome-wide rewiring during the egg-to-embryo transition and more generally during cellular and organismal dormancy. The long-term vision of the Pauli lab is to unravel new concepts and molecular mechanisms governing key developmental transitions that mark the beginning of life. 

Andi’s work has been funded by the ERC, EMBO, HFSP, the NIH grant to independence (K99), the FWF START Prize, and a Whitman Center Fellowship from the Marine Biological Labs. In 2018, Andi became an EMBO Young Investigator (EMBO YIP), and in 2021 she was elected as an EMBO Member. In 2022, Andi got promoted to a senior group leader (= tenure) at the IMP.